We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Aristotle thinks that in order to remember, (1) one must be cognizant of aphantasmaused as a copy of that of which it is a phantasma,and (2) one must be cognizant of the time at which the original (i.e. now remembered) experience occurred (449b22–3, 450b25–451a8). In De Memoria1, he uses the first half, (1), of this schematic account in order to explain certain kinds of mis-rememberings. For instance, he says that mad people sometimes conjure up fantastic images and take them to be memories of past experience; such episodes are mis-remembering, because these people use that which is not a copy as if it were a copy (451a8-l 1). In De Memoria2, Aristotle returns to the topic of mis-remembering (although it may now be more accurate to call it mis-recollecting1) and here he uses the second half, (2), of his schematic account, together with the first, in order to explain additional sorts of mistakes. He claims that we sometimes recall the image of an event and properly use it as a copy, but we get the time wrong (thinking, for example, that an event occurred a week ago, when actually it occurred yesterday), and thus we fail to remember; further, he claims that we sometimes get the time right, but fail to use an image as a copy of the events which occurred during that time. In each case we fail to remember; for in order to remember we must both use an appropriate copy as a copy and (more or less) accurately cognize the time (452b27–9).
1 One of the salient differences between remembering and recollecting is that the latter must issue from the deliberative faculty, while the former need not (and for the brutes, which lack a Ideliberative faculty, certainly cannot) (453a4–13).
2 In De Somno,Aristotle claims that the archeof perception is located in the region about the heart (462al-5). In De Memoria1, he claims that memory traces are 
(450a31, b5,16). The principle evidence that these traces are bodily marks is found in the De Memoria1 account of why some people have poor memories (450bl-l 1). There Aristotle states that the young and the old do not have good memories, because the former are growing and too moist/soft (
,450b9) while the latter are in decay and too hard/dry (
). He is not speaking metaphorically (i.e. he is not claiming that the young are ‘as-if moist or that the old are ‘as-if’ dry); for elsewhere he supposes that compared to the rest of us the young are literally moist/soft and the old are literally dry/hard (De Longitudine Vitae5, 466a 18–23, b 13–15). Thus, he thinks that changes in our bodily constitution explain differences in our ability to retain memories. Since he proposes that such changes can bring about the decay of existing phantasmata,he must think that phantasmataare marks in the proton aisthetikon.I have discussed the subject of the physiological status of phantasmata(together with the subject of the physiology of aisthesis)in ‘Material Alteration and Cognitive Activity in Aristotle′s De Anima′, Phronesis41.2 (1996), 138–57.
3 One might argue that the ‘change connected with the time’ is not a phantasma(i.e. not a bodily mark), but is the duration of the time spent in recalling the event-signature. There are two difficulties with this view. First, it does not seem to provide an explanation of how we can get the time right and fail to recall the appropriate event-signature. Second, it does not fit easily with Aristotle′s claim that we can improve our recall speed through training (see 451b16–28 and n. 16, below).
4 See J. L. Beare, ‘Notes on Aristotle′s Parva Naturalia′, Hermathena10 (1897–8), 455–73, and W D. Ross, Aristotle: Parva Naturalia(Oxford, 1955), pp. 249–52. The superiority of the Beare/Ross reconstruction over that found in Sophonias′ commentary is demonstrated by Ross (p. 250). The main difficulties with the version in Sophonias are (i) it requires that mental images are larger than the external objects which they represent, and (ii) within it there are three letters (2V, Eand P)which do not occur in any extant text.
5 Besides Beare and W. D. Ross, see Richard Sorabji, Aristotle on Memory(Providence, 1972), pp. 18–21, 108–10; John Cooper, review of Sorabji in Archivfur Geschichte der Philosophie,57 (1975), 66–8. The diagram is also discussed in G. T. R. Ross, Aristotle: De Sensu andDe Memoria(Cambridge, 1906), pp. 275–83, 289–90. While G. T. R. Ross levies criticism against the interpretation that is offered by W. D. Ross, his primary focus is on earlier interpretations by Themistius and Freudenthal. He does not propose a detailed interpretation of his own. Perhaps, this is due to his belief that, by means of the diagram, Aristotle is ofFering nothing more precise than a ‘general illustration of the relation which internal 
have to external 
and 
’
6 The Greek text is that of W. D. Ross. I diverge by following Sorabji in not bracketing 
at 1.15.
7 I have translated 
on here as if it meant 
which is awkward, but there is no alternative with this text.
8 Both Sorabji (pp. 108–9) and G. T. R. Ross (p. 278) suggest that 
here refers to the sensible forms. I suggest that the reference is limited to certain types of sensible form (perhaps, shape, in light of the earlier discussion: b12); for here 
is contrasted with 
and, since there ought to be a sensible form for distance, the contrast is lost, unless 
refers to some other type(s) of sensible form. Aristotle thinks that perception is the reception of sensible form without matter (see De Anima11.12 424a18). When an object is perceived, its sensible form is in the perceiver, but its matter is not. The sensible form in the perceiver must in some cases be analogous to the sensible form in the object. Since the eye is smaller than most visible objects, the perception of magnitude by sight must involve the production of a small-scale analogue within the eye (see Sorabji, p. 109). In the De Anima,Aristotle does not explicitly state that small-scale analogues will typically be involved in perception, but his general theory of perception seems to require that he hold such a view.
9 In the same moment the person is aware of both ABand the ratio 0:1and thus is able to produce AT(since AP.AB::Θ:I).
10 More precisely, the problem is ‘what makes it true that Socrates is remembering the 10 ft. rod rather than the 20 ft. rod?'.
11 For, if these signatures are not in some way separable, then there could not be a time-signature problem in the first place: if awareness of each time-signature is necessarily bound up with awareness of its respective event-signature, then whenever we get the event right, we necessarily get the time right. But, Aristotle supposes that this is not the case.
12 If Θ:I::AF:ABand K:A::AZ:ABand both AFand AZare larger than AB,then Θmust be larger than Iand Kmust be larger than A.But it is clear from §A that the changes within are smaller than those that are without (see b14–15): the signatures are smaller than the distances that they represent. Thus, Beare transposes AF/ABat b19 and ZA/BAat b22 so that Θ:I::AB:AFand K:A::AB:AZ.Since both AFand AZare larger than AB, Θmust now be smaller than / and Kmust now be smaller than A.
13 It should be noted that in his 1908 translation of the passage (reprinted in W. D. Ross [ed.], The Works of Aristotle,vol. Ill [Oxford, 1931]), Beare chooses not to transpose the letters at b19 and b22.
14 It is odd that Ross claims that his own ‘interpretation of the passage is in essentials identical with that of Beare in Hermathena,x...(p. 251). For, while Ross and Beare agree on the essentials of the reconstruction of the diagram, their respective views on Aristotle′s use of it are markedly different.
15 In support of Ross, one might suggest that since Aristotle is concerned in the case of spatial distance with both the size of the object and the distance between the object and the observer (see 452b9-l 1 and 16–17), we should (by analogy) expect him to be concerned in the case of time with both the temporal size of the event and its temporal distance away from the observer. However, the difficulty (again) is that Aristotle nowhere indicates a concern with grasping the duration of events.
16 The principle difference between their interpretations is that, while Sorabji understands the diagram to stand for ‘lines physically imprinted in one′s central sense-organ′ (p. 19), Cooper suggests that it is a ‘representation on a slate boardof... certain imagings, which take a certain time... (p. 67, his italics). On Cooper′s view, the lines ABand BEare presented to Aristotle′s students as representations of the times taken by particular acts of imaging (see pp. 67–8). Thus, hypothesizing the ratio ‘if the imagings AB and BE take respectively fifteen seconds and ten seconds,...then the events connected with AB and BE took place respectively fifteen and ten minutes earlier’ (p. 68). This interpretation may be misguided; for it does not seem to allow for the possibility of the improvement of imagining speed through repetition. Sorabji′s view would seem to be preferable. One merit, of his view, is that the physiology of time-signatures turns out to be akin to the physiology of event-signatures. Regardless, here my criticism focuses on the features that are common in the accounts presented by Sorabji and Cooper.
17 Aristotle offers this as an example of remembering the time without precision 
452b30. W. D. Ross emends the passage to 
However, the dative does not really give an example of remembering withoutprecision. Since the genitive is partive and indefinitely refers to some point within a stretch of time, it makes the example vague enough to suit Aristotle′s purposes. So, here I prefer the genitive.
18 In §B, Aristotle refers to changes which occur ‘at the same time 
(452b20). Here he is not picking up the topic of the grasp of time, but is addressing the simultaneous grasping of the event-signature and the ratio of transition.
19 The diagram that Beare and W. D. Ross have reconstructed is the spatial diagram. The related (but simpler) temporal diagram would consists of no more than a line ABFZand ratios of transition Θ:1and K:A,where ABstands for the time-signature and AFand AZstand for the real times which are represented through the application of the respective ratios. The temporal diagram is implicit within the spatial diagram.
20 In De Memoria1, Aristotle offers a brief discussion on the topic of our grasp of magnitude (see 449b30–450a7). However, this discussion is offered within the scope of an analogy with geometry and this limits Aristotle to cases which are strictly relevant to that specific theoretical discipline. In this discussion, he claims that phantasmatacan be used to represent both objects that have magnitude, but not determinate magnitude, and objects that lack magnitude (perhaps, the geometer′s triangle and point respectively). But he fails to mention the third possibility: phantasmatacan be used to represent objects that have a determinate magnitude. Since this possibility does not explicitly come to light in De Memoria1, the problem of how we recall an object with some particular magnitude as opposed to an object with some different magnitude is left unaddressed in that chapter.
21 I would like to thank Rob Bolton and Sarah Broadie for friendly and helpful discussion on the various drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Tim Maudlin, Anthony Preus, Dan Tompkins and the anonymous referee for useful comments on the penultimate draft. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the fourteenth annual conference of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophyat Binghamton University (October 1995).
